TEAM and GENERAL UPDATE: Navigating the Current Landscape
Greetings fellow SNAC Fanatics!
Changing landscapes in politics and funding often go hand-in-hand with changes in priorities and organization… more on that for the majority of this post, but first, a happy update on our SNACSchool event last month!
The team here planned and promoted a 2-day virtual SNACSchool session on March 5 & 6, 2025 to get members of our team and members of the Indigenous Description Group trained on the editing functions of SNAC. Participants were in an out, but we saw a total of 14 unique attendees over the 2 days and some of those individuals provided feedback that we hope to use to improve SNACSchool in the future! We also recorded those sessions and they can be found here! We are hoping to test drive an asynchronous class with some of our team members to offer more accessible options for people in the future using these videos.
As you are aware from recent updates, the IndigenizeSNAC team received grant funding from the Mellon Foundation, which will allow the team to hire new positions and continue the work in improving access and discoverability to SNAC overall, but in particular for Indigenous communities. Despite a hiring freeze at UMD, the listings and subsequent searches for the following positions are slated to go live shortly:
- SNAC Developer
- SNAC Trainer
- Project Manager
- Metadata Specialist
- Linked Open Data Coordinator
- Post-Doctoral
We expect positions and descriptions to mold to fit changes, but we hope to link the listings here once they are live, so feel free to continue checking back or reach out to indigenizesnac@umd.edu to ask questions.
The grant also will allow us to pay honoraria for consultants and members of the Advisory Board, to provide laptops for team members who may need one, to fund travel and other relevant miscellaneous expenses that will help team members promote our work and expand our reach!
On the IMLS and catalyst funding provided by UMD to get us to this point, the funding for those projects is coming to a close (read here about the decimation of the IMLS). Members of the team are frantically working to accomplish the goals of those funding sources ASAP to then focus on finding ways to continue funding and work. This includes the production of a video promoting SNAC, planning educational events, and, in particular, an Indigenized SNAC event. The video is forthcoming and dates for SNAC events are in the pipeline and will be updated to the SNAC Calendar!
Normally, we would link to pages on the SNAC website for easy reference to those resources (e.g., the calendar), but another plan is to revamp the website to reflect some key changes. So once again, once those changes occur, we will try to update this post as well!
Lastly, another key change is to the structure of the SNAC Cooperative. The working groups were restructured and have been “hubbed” under respective institutions that are driving those functions at the moment. The SNAC Director is still currently hubbed at the University of Virginia and will work with individuals on the Operations Committee. The various working groups (Technical-UVA, Editorial Standards, and Outreach-UMD) have been restructured and are being revamped (looking for chairs and new members—if you’re interested, please fill out this form!). These groups will all report up to the Operations Committee. A functional group, the SNACSchool Committee, will also report up to the Operations Committee, and is being revamped as well.
An illustration of this organizational structure will be posted here, and on the website, at a later date for easy reference in case you need to get in touch with any particular groups.
We hope that these changes will provide all of us with a safe space to continue working on this work and platform that we are all passionate about… standing together in solidarity is crucial in these times of uncertainty and we are happy to be standing with YOU!
